1) The author was involved in an interpretive dance performance of Antigone set in a church and choreographed to music by the band Against Me. 2) While striking the elaborate set for the performance, large metal bases that supported platforms had to be stored high up in a cupboard. The author was assigned to spot the stage manager putting the bases away. 3) Something large and metal fell from above and hit the author's head, causing profuse bleeding. The author was fine after getting stitches at the hospital.

1. Creative Writing Non-fiction
Alan Gabay
Red Coffee
At the time I was involved in an interpretive dance/physical reenactment of “Antigone”
set in a local Church, choreographed to the music of the band “Against Me”. And yes, I
gradually came to realize how ridiculous that sounded as I was in the process of typing it. You
see, the professional theatre company “Punch Drunk” was, at that moment, made particularly
famous for their interpretive dance/physical acting version of Macbeth choreographed and
performed in an abandoned school house. It was called “Sleep no more” i.e. “Methought I heard
a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep’”. I’m sure there’s probably something
that’s supposed to be artsy about that, but all I can think about is Macbeth killing naptime or
whatever. Essentially, my friend from High school wanted to emulate that idea, so, yeah, that’s
how that happened.
I remember I was seventeen, in my senior year of High School. It was around late March
or early April, so it may astonish you to hear about the second-semester senior who was actually
trying to do things and putting effort into stuff, but all same, that was me, never one to leave
something done half-assed.
Oh and this all takes place after that show ended. Sorry to tease you with all of that, it’s
not actually all that important past simple contextual stuff. The show was set in a church with
audience members wearing masks shaped like white raven faces, as they wandered from room to

2. room taking in all the different angles of the various characters of Antigone in different rooms
throughout experiencing events from the story in addition to artistic interpretations of what is not
written for the characters in the play, all while dancing to ironically interpretive songs written by
the band “Against Me!”, i.e. a pretty by the numbers experience. I was in the role of the character
“Creon,” which I assume was a stirring performance, I drove myself to tears.
But moving onto the strike of the show—as it turns out, this show was a highly
complicated and multi-staged production; therefore it needed a very complicated and multi-
faceted set that was at the same time easily tore down and set up. There were a wide variety of
rudimentary set pieces that had to be transported to and from the church from the school that
they came from: curtains, platforms steel bars to support various things, and what stood out the
most to me: these steel bases that the supports had to be stuck in order to stand them up. Why
exactly is this you might ask? Because those things were heavy. Like really, really, fucking
heavy. They kind of had to be that heavy in order to be adequate supports for the large metal bars
that were placed inside of them. I’m fairly certain that they were made of steel, which is what
attributed their heft, and we were responsible for transporting several dozen of them back to the
school. The best sense I can give of it is: carrying one at a time is fairly challenging, two at a
time was more or less right at the limit of what I deemed to be possible, and if you say that you
are able to carry more than two of those things at a time, then you really need to rethink your life
decisions because you are lying.
So now we fast forward to when we managed to transport everything back to the school.
All of the various set pieces were being taken from the cars/school buses that they were
transported inside and taken into the theatre building. This included the large steel bases, which
were being hauled, one or two at a time (no more) into the shop lobby. Now, this next part

3. continues to confuse me to this very day. You see, for some reason, the designated storage place
for these large metal bases was in this obscure cupboard that was conveniently tucked away on
top of the platform storage shed, about 7 or 8 feet in the air. “Putting away absurdly heavy steel
platform bases at an unnecessarily high altitude? What could possibly go wrong?” is the general
sentiment that I’m feeling as I write this, but for some odd reason is not what really occurred to
me in the moment. So, the stage manager, Chris, was tasked with taking three of these
monstrosities up to this location at a time in the shop’s genie (which, if you don’t know, is an
easily transportable elevating lift which is used for reaching high places in a theatre.
Unfortunately, no, there were no catchy Robin Williams song and dance numbers involved). And
of course I, being the person available for the task at the time, was assigned to spot Chris while
he did the hauling i.e. I held onto the genie while it was going up to make sure it was safe for
him while putting the bases away. In the middle of this process, I remember hearing something
of a shift above me. It was odd, I didn’t really know what it was, but I didn’t really have time to
think for very long because almost immediately afterward I was more focused on the sight of
blood rushing out of my head at an alarming rate.
Oh also, let me make this perfectly clear: those heavy metal bases that I was bitching
about a few paragraphs ago? Yeah, that’s not what fell and hit me. No, not at all. If one of those
things had fell on my head from that distance then I’d be dead, I have no doubt in my mind.
Sorry to pull the rug out from under you like that, but this is a non-fiction story after all, and that
is what was “striking” me at the time (ha. Maybe a little theatre humor can lighten the mood a
bit).
But no, regardless, it was something large, hard, black, and (get your mind out of the
gutter) metal. The funny part is: I never really got a good look at it. I was perhaps a bit too

4. occupied with the profuse bleeding that was happening all over the shop lobby. I’m told that
apparently it was some kind of support that was used in the platforms that are put up during
graduation. And on the topic of bleeding, shit man, it was a lot, like shockingly so. The whole
experience went a bit like:
“Waiting for Chis down here, Waiting for Chris down here. La di da di da di, HOLY
FUCKING SHIT THAT HURTS. OW. FUCK. OW FUCK. OW. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. Ow ow
ow—hey what’s all that red stuff falling on the ground—oh that’s coming from me.”
Have you ever seen how coffee machines make coffee? The coffee pours into the cup, not
really in a steady stream, but in more of a really fast dripping? That’s the best visual I can give
for the blood leaking from my head at that moment.
You know, thinking back on it, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds (though I hope the
narrative made it sound bad, that’s kind of what I was going for). Life is deceptively misleading-
I mean, yeah, I wouldn’t recommend dropping steel bars, heavy or otherwise, on your precious
cranium any time soon, but honestly I feel kind of cheated by the experience. I was always led to
believe that there would be some sort of crippling head trauma from an incident like this. Where
was my crippling head trauma, dammit?!? Oh yeah, I lost a bunch of blood—psh—I’ve got loads
of that crap and I can always make more. No, after the initial pain and shock of my bodily fluids
leaking onto the ground faster than I would have liked, I was completely fine. I went to the
hospital, my dad picked me up, I got ice cream from an ice cream truck on the way home, and I
was in school the next day, nobody else the wiser (except Chris who I think had to mop up the
blood).

5. So what’s my point? Well, maybe we’re all big babies when it comes to dangerous
injuries I guess (and I swear that’s only, like, half sarcasm). Life is a thing for living, not
stressing out over the more hazardous parts of it. I’m sure that everyone who witnessed the
incident was just as shocked as I was, but in the end I was fine, and I’m still living my mostly
fine life to this day without any more of a damper on it, and so should you.